Friday, March 11, 2016

Testing All The Time?

The new education law, the
"Every Student Succeeds Act," appears to us to be part
of movement that may increase testing far more than ever and drastically narrow
the curriculum: this will come in the form of Competency-Based Education (CBE).
As described in a recent paper from the National Governor's Association, CBE is
course-work based on the common core, providedby and designed by commercial publishers, and delivered online to
schools. Students work individually on computers, and are allowed to move from
module to module only when they have "mastered" the current module.
Mastery is determined by passing a test, also delivered online.

CBE modules present skills and content
knowledge as objectives that are "clear" and "measurable"
(p. 3), that is, the modules only cover material that lends itself to
straight-forward testing. This severely limits what can be included.Students take the tests when they feel they
are ready.

Demonstrated competence via these online courses will
determine student success, teacher ratings and the ranking of the school. Thus,
students will be in a perpetual cycle of working through packaged programs and
being tested on their content. This could translate into test prep and testing
all the time, with end-of-module tests perhaps even daily.

The new education law and CBE

The new education law is an important
part of making all this happen. Sections 1201 and 1204announce grants to for "innovative
assessments" and explicitly mention competency-based education. Section
1204 discusses "computer-adaptive" assessments"that emphasize the
mastery of standards and aligned competencies in a competency-based education
model...". To show that CBE is not just a supplement but
is core, applicants for grants are required to include a plan "to
transition to full statewide use of the innovative assessment system."

The lack of research

The following statement about CBE is from the National Governor's Association's paper, a document that aggressively promotes CBE: "Although
an emerging research base suggests that CBE is a promising model, it includes
only a few rigorous evaluations and analyses of current and ongoing CBE pilots
and similar programs" (p. 6). Despite this admitted gap, "Efforts to
start transitioning to CBE systems have begun in both K-12 and higher education
through discussions at the federal, state, and local levels" (p. 4). And,
we might add, these efforts are supported by the new education law.

Coincidence?

President Obama's recent call for a limit on
standardized testing may simply be a convenient first step toward something
much worse than end-of-the-year testing: testing all the time, which makes
end-of-the-year testing obsolete. It is interesting that the President's
announcement took place on October 25, 2015, the National Governor's
Association's position paper on CBE is dated October, 2015, and the new
education law was signed by the President December 10, 2015, all very close in
time.

Paying for the new
technology

It has not escaped
our notice that CBE will reduce the role of teachers. This might be deliberate,
freeing up funds for more spending on technology and greater
profits for the technology industry, the industry that will supply the
computers, the software, the hardware, the content of the modules, and, of
course, the tests.

Conclusion

The new education law greatly facilitates the
introduction of CBE, a move that will limit what is taught to easily testable
facts and concepts. The new law is considered by many to signal a reduction in
testing, but its support for competency-based education promises to make the current
testing burden, already the heaviest in the history of the planet, much much
worse, as well as making corporate profits much much higher.